Taxue’s hackles went up at the commotion outside the window, and it hissed.
Meng Shiwan made sure the driver’s-cabin door was locked, scooped up Taxue, and went back into the RV’s living area.
Since it had come to this, first have half a durian to settle the nerves.
Just eating durian was dull, so she opened the display and put on a comedy variety show.
Wherever you fall down, lie down right there and get a bit of sleep before anything else.
The zombies couldn’t get into the RV anyway.
Taxue sat on the sofa, looked at the snarling zombies outside, then at the poop-eating poop-scooper beside it, and heaved a heavy sigh.
Life truly wasn’t easy, even a cat had to sigh.
Once the RV had stopped and the engine cut out, the noise vanished, and the gathered zombies lost their target, milling in place in confusion.
They didn’t leave, though, they stayed jammed around the RV, packed tight.
Meng Shiwan reached out and cracked the window open a sliver. The scent of fresh flesh and blood drifted out, and the milling zombies grew agitated again.
The zombies around the RV tried to climb up, but the outer walls were too smooth, all that could be heard was the ear-splitting scrape of zombie nails on the metal panels.
The zombies farther off shoved hard, head against head, letting out impatient snarls.
Meng Shiwan turned up the TV a little to cover the racket outside.
The zombie horde’s restlessness drew the attention of the survivors within the farmers’ market.
On the sixth floor of a certain building, a man quietly poked his head out to check, then just as quietly pulled it back in.
Du Zitao slumped to the floor and said softly, “The zombie horde is all surging toward the road. No idea what happened over there.”
The others in the room, faces full of terror, tiptoed about, not daring to make a sound.
His mother spoke up. “I think I just heard a vehicle driving. Who would still come here at a time like this?”
His wife knit her brows. “I saw online that a rescue team’s been formed and they’re working to save survivors. Could it be the rescue team?”
Father Du lit a cigarette. “The state of things around here, even if a rescue team came they might get stuck too. It’s rough.”
Before the outbreak, they’d been holding a market here, even bringing in an opera troupe.
It had also happened to coincide with the wheat harvest just wrapping up. With the farm work done, many farmers from the outskirts came here to buy tools, machine parts, seeds, and the like.
Add the draw of the market, and the daily foot traffic was enormous.
The people coming to market were packed shoulder to shoulder, walking the streets, one careless step and you’d bump into someone or be bumped.
Their family ran a farm-tools shop on the ground floor. Father Du had even been thinking that with business booming during this market, he’d surely make good money.
No one imagined they’d run into a zombie outbreak.
That day Du Zitao and his wife were on leave and had come back to join the market’s bustle.
Mother Du was home preparing the meal, leaving only Father Du minding the shop below.
At noon, a customer picking out farm tools suddenly went rigid, head twisting, and lunged at him baring his teeth.
Father Du assumed the man had a rabies attack, and terrified, without a thought for anything else, ran upstairs.
He’d meant to call security to come take a look when Du Zitao came running down from above, face aghast. “Dad, get home, quick!”
Father Du didn’t think twice and ran home after his son.
The instant they were inside, Du Zitao locked the door behind him, shoved a cabinet against it, and gasped for breath.
Father Du was still muttering, “There’s a customer in the shop having a rabies fit. We need to call security to check it out, can’t have someone stealing my stuff while I’m gone.”
His daughter-in-law said in a trembling voice, “Dad, it’s not rabies. Look outside.”
Father Du frowned, not understanding why they all looked like they’d seen a ghost.
He went to the window and looked down, and saw a scene he would never forget as long as he lived.
The street below, once full of people, had become a hunting ground.
He watched, wide-eyed, as a child bit its mother’s hand, the woman’s neck soon twisted too, and she lunged and tore at the person beside her, ripping a chunk of flesh clean off their arm.
The bitten man screamed in terror, but soon went still and opened his mouth to bite the others around him.
Everyone was screaming, running, but it was so crowded there was no escaping at all.
A tall man pinned a small, thin woman to the ground and gnawed at her.
A few people who’d lost their minds held down one person and chewed them into a bloody pulp.
He saw a woman bite a huge chunk of flesh clean off a child’s face, chew a few times, and swallow it down.
The whole street was a tower of screams, blood everywhere.
Father Du couldn’t speak for a long time. “What, what happened?”
Du Zitao said hoarsely, “It’s zombies. I always thought zombies only existed in novels. Turns out there really is a zombie outbreak.”
Half an hour later, the street gradually quieted.
Those who could hide had hidden, those with nowhere to hide had all turned into zombies now roaming the streets.
Their family counted themselves lucky, every one of them had survived, whole and intact.
Mother Du prayed, “I hope it’s the rescue team. They have to get us out of here, this place is too terrifying.”
Inside the RV, Meng Shiwan, full and content, moved the display aside and looked through the opening at the scene beyond the windshield.
The zombies were still pressing toward her, the road held nothing but cars and zombies, not a gap to be found.
She had to find a way to save herself now.
Waiting for a rescue team, who knew how long that would take.
Maybe a month, two months?
She couldn’t afford to wait.
The RV did hold plenty of food, enough for several years.
With frugal use of the water, she’d be fine drinking for months.
The problem was the fuel tank, unexpanded, its fuel capacity too small.
The weather would grow hotter by the day. Within half a month, the temperature would climb to a degree humans couldn’t bear.
If she didn’t run the RV’s air conditioning, the inside would surely become a steamer.
But if she ran it around the clock, the roof’s solar power definitely couldn’t keep up.
She’d need the gasoline generator to supply power, but the fuel tank was small, and the fuel inside wouldn’t last more than a few days.
Now her only option was to cut her own way out.
There were at least a thousand zombies surrounding her, the RV couldn’t move, and there was no way she could hack through them one at a time.
How to cut a way out had become the foremost problem.
Anyone else in this situation would surely panic and lose their wits.
But who was she?
She was Meng Shiwan, who’d traveled back from three years in the apocalypse.
“Xiaozhi, turn on the AC, set the temperature to ten degrees.”
“Yes, Master. The air conditioning is on.”
Above the cupboard, beside the range hood, the AC vanes opened, cold air blowing out, and the temperature throughout the RV dropped rapidly.
Meng Shiwan closed the windows and checked over the whole RV, making sure every window was shut tight.
From a corner at the rear she took out a metal can the size of a large detergent bottle, filled with gasoline.
It was a gift from the RV factory, she’d left it in the corner and nearly forgotten it.
She fished a lighter out of a gap in the shoe cabinet, took the remote, and went up to the second floor.
Taxue watched her bustle about with round eyes, not knowing what she was doing.